Post: #1

http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/new-airlin...rvice.html


Surf Air has the all-you-can-fly plan for you. Starting this summer, the new airline will offer members as many flights as they want, on a fleet of eight private planes, for just $790/month.

“It works largely the way Netflix does,” said Wade Eyerley, co-founder and a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. A $790 membership allows you to hold two reservations at a time – as soon as you fly, you can place another reservation. The $990 and $1,490 memberships allow you four and six reservations respectively.

Post: #2

This is pretty awesome. Limited usefulness for most people, but badass for the ones that can make it worthwhile.

Post: #3

Right now they only have four destinations, all in Cali:

Palo Alto
Monterey
Santa Barbara
Los Angeles

I could see this really catching on if they expand to more destinations, of course they will make most money from people who sign up and hardly ever use it and not cancel their membership for 6 months, a year, and so on.

Unless you travel 2-3+ times a month I don't think this would be a value versus regular airlines or auto.

Post: #4

I've been hoping someone would do this for a while. Hope it catches on.

Post: #5

This sounds awesome, hope they expand more soon.

Post: #6

I have a feeling that they eventually lower the monthly cost enough to bring in the "well, if I take a flight anytime this month, it's gonna cost me $450, better keep it" crowd and then they add a $99 fuel charge for each ticket. They get a much larger pool of people that will only use the service once every month, which is a much more viable insurance/gym membership type business model and they keep control over their variable costs such as fuel for those that really take advantage of the service. That or they keep it geared for business execs and owners that usually fly first class or people that commute 4+ hours a day between major cities. Either way, I don't see it being profitable for them unless they pull in the guy that keeps the service "just in case". That guy isn't paying $790 a month.

Post: #7

The problem with these type of schemes is getting an actual booking on the dates you require. If you are suitably flexible and don't mind booking 6 months in advance then cool but don't go thinking you could just decide on a Thursday to fly off for the weekend as it will no doubt be booked up.

Having said that I hope it works as a business model. It's the kind of thing Michael O'Leary would bring in for Ryan Air in Europe. 150 GBP a month for unlimited flights. If they added UkR/BLR/RUS destinations I would sign up.

Post: #8

Reminds me of this: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/na...ers08.html

Would love to have one of those tickets; unlimited first class travel for life.

Post: #9

Jetblue had something like this for a month a year or two ago